


No Answers

by troubleinmind



Category: The Adventure Zone (Podcast)
Genre: Angst, Canon Compliant, Character Study, F/M, Lup's dead but not more dead than canon, Missing Scene, Spoilers for everything, kind of character death?, no happy ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-23
Updated: 2017-10-23
Packaged: 2019-01-21 19:00:00
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,185
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12463866
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/troubleinmind/pseuds/troubleinmind
Summary: It had hurt far more than he was prepared for, far more than he could have imagined. Taako’s hand draped so casually over the Umbrastaff in a way that spoke of long familiarity. The twins didn’t always mirror each other so closely, but for a moment the image had been so vivid he could have sworn she was standing in front of him again.Barry alone in the immediate aftermath of Crystal Kingdom Chapter 7.





	No Answers

He reforms in his cave, still shaking with untethered energy. He can hear the siren call of madness echoing in the back of his mind. It’s constant these days, a decade of lichdom and solitude slowly but inevitably eroding his hold on mortal sanity. Now though, it’s drowned out by the more familiar human madness as his thoughts scream around him in a cacophony of confused distress.

This hadn’t been part of the plan. He had gone way off script and he probably hadn’t really gotten his point across to the boys. Right now though, suspended alone in his cave, slowly pulling the threads of himself back together, he doesn’t think of that.

It had hurt far more than he was prepared for, far more than he could have imagined. Taako’s hand draped so casually over the Umbrastaff in a way that spoke of long familiarity. The twins didn’t always mirror each other so closely, but for a moment the image had been so vivid he could have sworn she was standing in front of him again. It was a thousand memories at once, and though he had never really given up on finding her, he hadn’t been prepared for that. How long had it been? Had Taako had the staff this entire time and he somehow hadn’t noticed? They had looked together for so long; how was it possible that Taako, with no memory and no searching whatsoever had just stumbled across her?

His form shudders and crackles as he hears Taako’s voice again in his mind “I took it off this dead thug with a red robe. This dead guy.” It’s like a nightmare. Taako, somehow, at some point in the last few months, had stood over Lup’s corpse and not known who she was. Not felt anything apparently. He tries not to dwell on Lucretia’s thefts too often; while the anger makes it easy to keep his mind intact, the unending pain can be enough to overwhelm him all on its own. This solitary decade of futile questing has taken so much from him. Looking at Taako though, he can’t help but be grateful. What he has lost has been shattering. What Taako has lost has been unthinkable.

He drifts towards the desk and stares at his map. As the shock begins to recede he is left with a disturbing set of questions. It’s obvious that Taako found Lup’s body with her Umbrastaff. The other members of his family are all accounted for, and the chances of some random extra picking up her umbrella while also wearing a red robe are really not worth contemplating. Lup, therefor, must be dead, but the dead remember. If Lup is a litch, she remembers everything. She remembers him. She remembers her brother. She remembers everything they did.

So where is she?

She’s been missing for over a decade. It’s impossible to say when in that time she died, but it can’t have been that recent, not if Taako didn’t recognize his own face on her body. She has been a litch, fully remembering, for a few months at least, but none of them have seen her. He would know. There are things that don’t bear thinking about. Lich forms, while powerful, are not invincible, and this world is not without its dangers. Could she have met with something powerful enough to send her to the astral plane? Could she have succumbed to the madness that haunts the edges of his thoughts? After so many cycles and so many deaths had her litch transition just failed her? None of that seems possible, but then neither does the idea of Lup out in the world, free and knowing, not trying to find them, even just to say goodbye.

A slight red crackle ghosts over the map, tracing along the threads from town to town. Taako did not have the Umbrastaff when they rescued him in the cave. He’s certain of that. Did he have it in Phandalin when it was destroyed? This is the major drawback of having to shift between his living and undead forms to do this work. He cannot trust living Barry’s memories, because living Barry doesn’t always know what to look for. It’s possible Taako had found the staff by the time he arrived in town, and Barry simply hadn’t noticed. Between their desperate attempts to calm Gundren and Barry’s own extremely painful death there had been too much going on for him to focus on the boys and their return, especially given he barely knew them then. It makes sense though, for Lup to have been found with her relic, and it’s more of a lead than he’s had in years. If he can’t find her there it won’t even be too hard to retrace his friends’ steps between then and now. He’s been tracking them so closely that most of that work has already been done.

He checks briefly on his slowly growing body before preparing to venture out once again. Time is so short now, and he has so much to do, but he can’t pass up this opportunity. If there are any answers to be found with Lup’s body, he owes it to all of them to chase them down. Wave Echo Cave is even nearby. He can spare a few days. 

\----------

Two days later Barry stands deep underground, before a very large door and a small pile of ash. He knows well enough to recognize litch remains and to guess at what he’s found, but this leaves him more questions than answers. This is not what Taako described. There is no dead body, no red robe. More importantly, no sign of Lup. He may have found her remains, but he’s no closer finding her spirit than he was yesterday, or a week ago.

He takes a moment alone in the cave to let despair wash over him. The vaulted ceilings glow as red lightning racks his shuddering form. He stretches out hands that are not there, trying to bury them in the ashes that tell him nothing he wants to know. Time has healed nothing and it hurts, he hurts, hurts endlessly. He allows himself one supremely stupid moment to think insanity might be preferable. It is just like Lup though, to be anchoring him even now.

He pulls himself slowly back together, drawing power back into his form and straightening up. He has so little time left, so much still to do. The Hunger is coming and they are nowhere near ready for it. He casts one more glance around the room. After they beat the Hunger, if they still have this world, he promises himself an eternity of searching. No distractions, no other concerns. He’ll come back here, comb every inch of these mountains for answers, not stop until he’s found her or at least found some kind of explanation. For now though, he has to leave it behind. He makes his way back to his cave and back to his map. He places a red pin on the Wave Echo Cave. He returns to work.


End file.
